An exploration of pizza in and around Rochester, NY, one pizzeria at a time

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Pizza Stop: Chicken Spinach Tomato slice

Just a quick post on a recent slice I had at The Pizza Stop, a place I've reviewed many times before. There's no point in reviewing the same consistently good cheese slices that I usually get here, but once in a while I try something different, so I like to report on that.
Recently I got, in addition to my cheese slice, a chicken-spinach-tomato slice. Particularly where New York style pizza is concerned, I don't tend to go for complicated specialty pizzas, but The Pizza Stop tends to keep it relatively simple, and when they do specialty pizzas, the toppings are generally well thought out.
So it was with the chicken, spinach and tomato pie. This may not have been a traditional Italian pizza, or based directly on an Italian dish, but it was in the spirit of great Italian cooking, with a few basic ingredients that added up to more than the sum of their parts.On this slice, chunks of lightly browned chicken mixed with wilted shreds of spinach and tomato slices, on a bed of melted mozzarella, topped with shredded Parmesan. Nothing particularly exotic, but the toppings complemented each other well, with the browned chicken adding some meaty heft to the tangy cheese, sweet tomatoes (which weren't bad, for this time of year in upstate New York), and the slight vegetal bitterness of the spinach.
Those toppings could've saved even a weak crust, but fortunately in this instance they came atop The Pizza Stop's signature thin crust, which remains one of the best around. The chicken slice did not have quite the blackish, charred areas that you'll usually find on the thin crust pizzas here, but it was still nice and crisp on the bottom, with a pleasingly bready aroma, flavor and chew.
As I've said before, plain cheese will always remain my go-to pizza, especially when we're talking New York style pizza. But variety is good too, and if you're in the mood for a white pizza, The Pizza Stop's chicken spinach tomato pizza is a winner.
The Pizza Stop, 123 State St., Rochester 14614
546-7252
Mon. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 7 p.m., Fri. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. Closed weekends.

Ratings Guide

A: great; one of the best this area has to offerB: pretty good; not top-notch, but definitely good, and better than averageC: OK; nothing special, but it’ll do; typical for our areaD: edible; if you’ve already paid for it, you might as well eat itF: downright bad; toss it and get something else